The Gospel

There are so many misunderstandings about what the gospel is and is not. Often, I hear that to be a Christian means that you were raised by Christian parents. I once asked someone what it meant to be saved. The response awakened me to the great mishandling of the gospel in the church of America. The person’s response was, “ you walk down the aisle after a pastor preaches and you talk with him, then he tells a few funny jokes to the congregation, and you top it off with baptism.” That would be like saying that I am a pianist because I played the piano one time in kindergarten. This is the farthest thing from what it means to be saved. This is the farthest thing from what it means to be a believer. My aim is to explain what a Christian is by defining the thing that defines him, the Gospel. There are five points that will help to clarify the gospel. The Gospel is the good news of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

The Character of God

Firstly, to understand the gospel we must first learn who God is.Genesis 1:1 says that “ In the beginning, God created heavens and the earth”(Genesis 1:1). So God is the creator. This means that He has made us and we are responsible to Him for what we have done or have not done. Leviticus 20:26 tells us that God is holy and that he requires that we be holy as well. Holy means to be set apart from sin. Psalm 119 declares that “ Righteous are you, Oh Lord, and right are all your rules”(psalm 119). The Bible continually speaks of God’s righteousness. God’s righteousness is that He is right in all His ways. Righteousness mean to be without wrong, without impurity. One more attribute of God we must look at is that He is just. Ecclesiastes 3:17 says that “I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work.” So God is creator, holy, righteous, and just.

Man is Sinful

Do you see the problem that man has? Our sin is a huge problem before God. God is creator, we are responsible to Him. God is holy meaning that we cannot spend eternity with him because we are soaked in sin, we love our sin. God is righteous and just meaning that he must rightly judge us for the sins we have committed. What is sin and why is it such a big deal? Our sin is anything that we think, act, or say that breaks God’s law. The Bible not only teaches that we have sin, but that we were born with sin in us. The Bible teaches in Romans 5:12 that sin entered into the world through one man and that man is born in sin. Most people know or at least have heard of the Ten Commandments. How well have you kept them? Have you ever told a lie? Of course you have! Have you ever kept something that did not belong to you? Of course you have! If you went to a public school, I know that you have stole because at the very least you kept a pencil that was not yours. Have you ever murdered someone? Of course not, right? 1 John 3:15 tells us otherwise, “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him”(1 John 3:15).So that means if we have ever been bitter towards anyone, we have murdered in our hearts. Jesus taught that we will be judged by our hearts because we sin physically because inwardly we desire sin. That is only three of the Ten Commandments and if we are honest, we are failing horribly so far. What if I told you that I had committed the worst sin possible? What would you think? What’s the greatest commandment? Jesus taught in Matthew 22:37–38 this, “And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment”(Matthew 22:37–38). Not one person other than Christ has done this. No one ever has done this, not even a millisecond. Maybe we are beginning to see the problem here. My first question is what is sin, my second question is, is our sin really a big deal? After all, God is a forgiving God right? I will use a common analogy to answer the question. Let us pretend that I hit one of my classmates in the face, what would happen? I might get beat up pretty good. If I do the same exact thing to a police officer, what would happen? I would go to jail. Say that I went to another country where there is a king who is most respected and I slapped him in the face. I would possibly be executed. Why? As the honor and respect of the individual rises so does the degree of your offense. We have slapped the holy, righteous, just, and eternal God. Since we have sinned against the eternal God, so must our punishment be eternal. “But wait”, you say, “ I have helped a lot of people and done great things, I am a good person!” Come and go to lunch with me. We are sitting at the table and we order our drinks. You watch me put just a drop of Cyanide into your drink. I stir it up and say, “take a drink”, would you? No you wouldn’t! Why, because it is poison, it would kill you! So God has set a standard and we have broken it. Even if we have lived a good life we still have poison, namely sin. Remember that God is holy meaning that he is set apart from sin. That means heaven can not be heaven if it has sin in it. Remember that God is just, that means he must punish our sin. Let us go to the courtroom. You were off at school or at work, and your family was at home. You come home to find your entire family murdered. You catch the man in the act. This man looks at you and says “ my heart has been fulfilled and that was exhilarating watching your brother scream his last breath.” Later in the courtroom, as he is about to receive his sentence guilty or not guilty; The judge ask him if there is anything he would like to say. He says to the judge “ Judge forgive me, I made a mistake. This was the only thing I did wrong and if you let me go I will never break the law again” The judge finds this appealing and lets him go free. What would you think about that judge? He let a guilty man go free! He is not a good judge! How about God? Remember he is both righteous and just. That means he will judge you and me. He will give you and I exactly what we deserve. The question is are you guilty or innocent? If you are innocent, how? Remember it does not matter how good you are, you have sinned and broken the law. James tells us the standard in James 2:10, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.” The answer by the word of God is that we are guilty, completely guilty. The sentence that God must give us is in Romans 3:23, “For the wages of sin is death. . .” That means that the wages for what we owe is death, that God must punish us with eternal death. The Bible teaches that there is a literal Heaven and a literal Hell. Let me be clear, there are also many misunderstandings of what hell is. God removes himself from those in hell. He removes any truly good thing that you have experienced.Matthew 5:23 says that in hell there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” In other words, there will be no “living it up” or partying in hell. Hell will be a place of eternal punishment, “ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46). See the problem is that there are “[n]one. . .righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God”(Romans 3:10–11). There is our problem, only the righteous can enter into heaven; Only those who are clean and pure, those who do not have blemishes before God. That is our problem. Like Paul we must ask “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death” (Romans 7:24)? Who will rescue us? Who deliver us from a hardened heart? Where is our answer?

Jesus is Enough

Our answer is the one Paul gives “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:25). This brings us to where we started at the beginning, what is the gospel? The gospel literally mean good news. The gospel is the good news of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Who was Christ? Christ is God. He is God the Father’s Son. The Holy spirit is God. God is one. God came as a man, in the flesh. He was man and God. He was born of the virgin mary. That means He was born without sin. This signifies that there was nothing that man-kind could do on it’s own. So God had to intervene in a miraculous way. The Bible teaches that “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth” (1 Peter:22). He also performed many miracles. He rose lazarus from the dead (John 11). He restored sight to the blind man (John 9). This testified to who He was. He displayed that he was not simply a prophet or a good man, but had power over life and death. He painted a beautiful picture. He displayed that he was God in the flesh!

Now, for the death of Christ we must go to the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the people had to make sacrifices for their sins. Hebrews tells us that “under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22). However, this was only a foreshadowing of the Christ. Shortly before the crucifixion, Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane praying. He tells what happens to Him while He is on the cross. Jesus says “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”(Matthew 26:39). What is important here is the symbolism of the cup. The cup represented God’s wrath. Jesus knew what was coming and because it was the Father’s will, he submitted and went to the cross. Remember, I had said that God cannot simply just forgive us of our sin. There is something so unique and beautiful that happens on the cross. Something so unimaginable we can not begin to know the depths of this beautiful picture. I could never describe what happened on the cross in a way that would completely paint the glorious sight. Let’s go to Victoria Falls. I have been there. Victoria Falls is the widest waterfall on the earth and also one of the seven wonders of the world. The sight I saw was unbelievable. The sound was incredible. The mist of the fall was heavy. The foliage was richly green. No matter how I continue on, you will not know of the glories of Victoria Falls till you have been there yourself. You can not know its full glory until you have been there. Like Victoria Falls, until you know the beauty and glory of what happened on the cross you can not know the King. You can not know of his goodness. You can not taste the sweetness. You can not see the incomprehensible beauty of knowing God till you know what he did. God’s wrath was heavy. God’s wrath was justice. God must punish us. Our debt must be paid. Let us travel back to the courtroom. Let’s say you did something incredibly dumb. Now you have a two million dollar fine. Keeping this analogy simple, you only have two options. Pay your fine, or pay with your time. Go to jail or pay the fine. Thats your options. What if someone paid your fine? Someone unknown to you. How would you feel? The judge can now give you your freedom back. He can still be a good judge. Why, because your debt to society was paid. Now that same person not only pays your fine, but gives you five billion dollars. How would you feel now? This is what happened on the cross!! God poured out his wrath that was for mankind!! He poured out wrath on His son! He crushed his son with the weight of His wrath for mans’ sin!! Christ was the final sacrifice. Christ was the sacrifices of sacrifices. He was the sacrificial lamb! He paid our fine and he gives himself the greatest treasure, Himself!

Finally, we come to the resurrection and ascension of Christ Jesus. How things would be so much different if he had not been raised from the dead! This signifies that God was pleased and accepted this great sacrifice. He did not just appear to a few. The Bible teaches that He “he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time” ( 1 Corinthians 15:6). Scripture tells us “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified”(Acts 2:36). What does this tell us? This scripture clearly tells us that he is king and the Christ! Not only has been resurrected but he has ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father. We learn in Hebrews that He “is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). This means that he is not just not conquered sin and death but that He is the King! He is seated in the highest throne. We all will respond to his Lordship. Some will submit and many will rebel (Matthew 7).

The Biblical Response

So how do we respond? How do we accept this payment? The Bible is very clear. There is nothing we can do on our own. We have already made a trash pit of our efforts. God calls us to repentance and faith. In Mark 1:15 Jesus taught “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel”(Mark 1:15). Repentance is literally means to have a change of mind. This means that we realize our sin before God. We realize what things we do are sinful. However, it does not mean that we only realize, but it means that we turn from it. We see our sin for what it is. Trash.Garbage. We are awoken to a sense of what it means to sin before God. Did you know that roaches eat feces (http://www.pestrol.com/cockroaches.php)? Roaches not only eat it but they enjoy it. What if somehow you could awake that roach and enlighten him to what he loves? Oh, what if we could be awakened to see what we love! We love sin, but God shows us what it is. He enlightens our hearts to it’s empty promises of fulfillment. He shows us that Christ is a treasure far more valuable than anything in this world. Psalms 16:11 says that “in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalms 16:11). So we repent and also we believe. What kind of belief was Jesus talking about? There is a kind of belief that is evil. The evil belief is that “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe — and shudder” (James 2:10). Jesus was talking about faith that brings us into forward motion. He says walk forward, so we do. He says go there and do this, so we do. This kind of faith is like if I say I believe my chair will hold and then I sit in it. The first kind of belief is saying that “yeah that chair will hold me” and then I never go sit in it (James 1:22–25).

I want to use one last illustration to drive home something about how we can be made righteous. Do you remember the story of David and Goliath? David calls out to Goliath “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied” ( 1 Samuel 17:45). Jonathan, son of the king heard this. Jonathan realized their common connection, a love for God. They ended becoming best friends. This is really odd. David was just a shepherd boy. That is the socially lowest at the time. Then you have Jonathan at the top of the social class, a prince! In their friendship Jonathan did the unthinkable. This is going to sound strange but let me explain and you too will see the beauty. Jonathan “stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt” ( 1 Samuel 18:4) What Jonathan was essentially doing was saying “I will die for you”. In doing this he took a man who was nothing and made him royalty. Jonathan was saying that they were on the same level socially! This is so incredible! This display what Christ can do for us! He takes us, spiritually depraved hating him. We have nothing to offer Him, nothing not a thing! Then he took our place, our sin on himself. Then he took his righteousness and places it on His children! He has made for us an inheritance in the kingdom! He has made us royal and rich. Let me be very clear, not the rich like the prosperity preacher claims but rich in Him. He gives us relationship with himself. This relationship is far more valuable than anything!

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21

Will Tomorrow Come?

Will tomorrow come for you? We do not know. What we do know is that every thirteen seconds someone in the United States dies (http://www.census.gov/popclock/). Tomorrow, will death come for you? Will he be waiting for you? Friend do not gamble with your life and soul, the most valuable thing you own. Oh God! Help us to be softened to your word and to the joy that is found in you! God let our hearts love you and find you most valuable!

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” Matthew 13:44